You Ain't Goin' Nowhere

YOU AIN'T GOIN' NOWHERE

Dylan has a way with words that's for sure. Just as Patti Smith will sound poetic even when she says good morning, or Michael Sripe will sound existential and profound whatever he says and sings so Dylan when he writes his songs somehow make the words emblematic and full of meaning.

The title starts off well with it's defeatist, downbeat, deflating double negative. It immediately hints at hopelessness, nihilism and world weariness. The first words quickly express how effimeral and transient things are with symbolic references to the speed of time passing "clouds so swift" and the he confirms his dismal view with the gloomy "the rain fallin' in". Anyone in such a state would need diversion, some entertainment, so he goes and sees a movie. Being intelligent and humorous he throws in a little barbed comment directed at Roger McGuinn lead singer of the Byrds who fully tapped into Dylan's talents to achieve success.

The next verse seems to be a change of tone. "Ride me high" is a phrase invented by Dylan to mean perhaps make me feel successful, lucky, a winner because his bride is going to come the next day and then they are really going to be ecstatic, "we gonna fly". But then he continues with "down in the easy chair" to let us know what he suspects marital bliss is all about i.e. a succumbing to torpor.

The last verse is full of amusing paradoxes. A "gun that sings" and "a flute that toots"could be the idea of making the best of living with someone and putting on a happy face. A "sky that cries" and "a bird that flies" might refer to foreseeable moments of unhappiness or even abandonment. A "dog that talks and a fish that walks" could be the absurd things that he thinks he might have to endure.

Of course it could all be about imagining what it's like to get married and sung with a very liberal dose of irony and humour. More than having actual meaning the song is conjecturing an attitude.